Kyle Burnat was a native of Atlanta and a 2001 graduate of Woodward Academy - a private school in an Atlanta suburb - where he had won the Coca-Cola Golden Helmet Award for academic and athletic excellence. Burnat continued his athletic pursuits at Yale as a hard-throwing right-handed pitcher for the Yale baseball team. He was an enthusiastic teammate who cracked jokes to keep everyone upbeat.

According to his father, Kyle knew immediately that Yale was the place for him. He loved every minute he spent there, and in turn touched the lives of countless friends and teammates. While he had not yet declared a major, he was interested in a career in business or law and also loved history and politics.

In a Jan. 21 memorial piece about him in the Yale Daily News, his friends recalled his intelligence, his modesty and his abilities on the pitcher's mound. Kyle was a star pitcher on the baseball field, a leader in the classroom, and a role model to his peers - but if you knew him, you also knew his modesty. "He rarely talked about himself," said Paul Pabst, who works for ESPN. "He never bragged about being good enough to play college baseball."

Kyle also enjoyed lifting weights and loved oldies music, and was "everybody's friend," according to Chris Freer, the dean of students at Woodward Academy. Classmates recall how he had a knack to make everyone happy and to make everyone laugh - Kyle was the life of the party.